Everyone Smiles in the Same Language

by Madeleine Fuller (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Haiti

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While volunteering with the Partners and Development Clinic of Blanchard, Haiti, the tap-tap returned to the clinic with patients from Cite Soleil. Before having a consultation, each patient went through triage workups which included testing glucose levels, taking blood pressure, weight, height and temperature. After every patient had their consultation, we were informed about a woman who was too lethargic to come. We decided to go back with the patients being dropped off to their village in the tap-tap, and give the woman a home consultation. Entering the fenced area of Cite Soleil and walking along the trail, we were witnessing unfathomable living conditions. The smell of burning garbage, feeling heat from flames coming off blazing tires lining the path, walking through black mud, swarms of blackflies, barbed wire, broken glass, and decaying dead animals. An active electrical wire hung in the middle of our narrow pathway. All we could see were mounds upon mounds of garbage, endless for miles. Locating our patient’s home was heartbreaking. Large piles of garbage were surrounding their home, built from scraps of sheet metal. Fifteen people were living in this household, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and our patient with her children. Unclothed children walking barefoot over garbage, suffering from malnourishment, bloated bellies, coughing, covered with a fungal infection, flesh eating viruses, with jaundice and sunken-in eyes. There were dead and living pigs with dogs laying outside of the bedroom window. People were cutting hair with a razor blade, and throwing the hair into large piles. Goats were eating the hair and garbage outside of our patient’s home. Looking at this young woman in agony, lying on a bed made of foam and cardboard, her eyes were strained by exhaustion, jaundice yellow, and very sunken in from malnourishment. The patient had a very high fever, hypotension, severe pain, cough, and appeared lethargic. Touching her back checking for kidney pain, she was in tears. Feeling her abdomen and pressing in by the ribs for a breathing exercise, vagal maneuver, helped calm the coughing. We promised to come back to bring our patient to the clinic in the morning. Once we returned to our patient’s home the following morning, she was in her father’s arms. The grandmother was giving our patient’s four little boys baths, without soap, in a tub next to the deceased pigs outside the bedroom window. This tub was filled with contaminated water from the well, a half mile away from their home. We gently placed our patient on the stretcher, shielding her from swarms of blackflies with a sheet, walking back to the tap-tap with the children and grandparents. Arriving to the clinic, we carried our patient in the emergency room to receive intravenous fluids. Then, we started to ask our patient for personal information, speaking while looking into her eyes and holding her hand consolingly. After caring for our patient two days, we finally learned her name is Francine and she is twenty-five years old. Francine tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome. This day in the clinic ended with Francine, resting on a clean bed, receiving medical care, surrounded by her compassionate parents and children. A city built upon mounds of garbage, a gruesome disheartening obstacle, yet people thrive for their families. At once demoralizing, rawness and fortitude were a beautiful cry for the gift of life. Surrounded by an environment of things damaged, castoff, and overlooked; still people live, rise and show us the true impact of strength, determination, and love.